Lessen Research Frustration with Academic Search Premier

Database Uses

Are you having a difficult time finding academic/peer-reviewed journals for your research project?  Explore Academic Search Premier, a multi-disciplinary full-text database containing full-text for nearly 4,500 journals, including more than 3,600 peer-reviewed titles.  In addition to the full-text articles, Academic Search Premier offers indexing and abstracts for all 8,144 journals in the collection.  This scholarly collection offers information in nearly every area of academic study including: computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies, and many more.  

Search Strategies

All researchers at all levels experience a certain amount of anxiety when beginning a research project.  One suggestion for easing the frustration of developing effective search strategies is to use Boolean operators to link search terms together; and/or limit the search to a specific title.  Using the Boolean and/or/not operators to link your search terms together is a great way to refine or broaden your search.  Academic Search Premier has made things easier by adding a drop-down list of the operators in the Advanced Search tab.   

Another suggestion is to use parentheses.  Academic Search Premier defaults its search from left to right, searching the terms in the order they appear in the strategy.  If a user uses parentheses in their search, those terms enclosed in the parentheses will be searched first.  The left phrase in parentheses is searched first; then based upon those results the second phrase in parentheses is searched.  A simple example of this is: 

 Generalized Search: dog or cat and show or parade

Focused Search:(dog or cat) and (show or parade)

Results

The majority of the full-text titles are available in searchable PDF format or scanned in color. 

~Danielle Becker, Reference/Digital Services Librarian

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April is National Jazz Month!

Join Briggs Library in celebrating this American music form by checking out our guide of the month. You can view the guide from our homepage or by clicking here. The guide features a selection of our reference books as well as biographies of jazz musicians and jazz groups available for check out and some web sites dedicated to jazz. Subject words are also provided to help you search our catalog and various databases for information on this topic.

Elizabeth Fox, Reference and Instruction Librarian

Ovid: New Features to Discover and New Trial Databases to Explore

Ovid’s links to full text offers you unprecedented access to the wealth of authoritative information available free on the Web – all from within your database search session!  You can now link seamlessly from the bibliographic record in Medline or Cinahl to the corresponding full text article available free on the Internet through DOAJ, Highwire and PubMed Central.  You’ll now see links in Medline & Cinahl to over 600 journals like Annals of Family Medicine, Archives of Disease in Childhood, Cancer Research, Chest, and Circulation, just to name a few!  

Take the time to explore the two new databases that Brigg’s library will have access to on a trial basis until May 4, 2007.  The first database is the Lippincott Springhouse Nursing Collection which provides practical day-to-day reference guides such as Nettina:  Lippincott Manual of Nursing Practice and Carpenito:  Nursing Care Plans and Documentation, as well as reference for updating specialized clinical skills, such as Cardiac Nursing and Fluid and ELectrolyte Balance.  To access this database please visit the Featured and Trial Database page on the Briggs library main page.

The second database is the Ovid Nursing Collection I.  This 100% searchable full-text resource provides the user with information on the following topics:  Emergency Medicine & Trauma, Oncology, Education, Research & Theory, Anesthesiology, Management & Administration, Nurse Practitioner & Advanced Practice Nursing, Gerontology, Obstetrics & Women’s Health, Critical Care and Pediatric Nursing. 

I encourage you to take the time to visit the Featured and Trials Databases page to discover and explore the many new electronic resources on trial at Briggs library.  Please remember to complete the online form provided at the bottom of the page to give us your feedback on the resources we trial.  Your feedback will help us when we are considering new resources to add to our electronic collection.

~Danielle Becker, Reference/Digital Services Librarian